"The story of the 200 US Marines at Makhmour and the flight of the 15th Division illustrates more than just the fragility of the Iraqi armed forces. It underlines the degree to which the US already has combat troops in Iraq, while all the while claiming that there are no 'boots on the ground.' Sergeant Cardin was not officially even in Iraq when he died because he was one of 1,470 US service personnel only temporarily in the country. Taken together with the 3,870 officially there and 1,100 contractors working for the Pentagon in Iraq who are US citizens this brings the total to over 6,400." (03/28/16)

"ISIS now becomes a new official enemy, replacing al Qaeda, the organization consisting of former extremist Muslims who the U.S. national-security state was partnering with in Afghanistan when it was the Soviets doing the occupying of that country. We're now told that ISIS is the greatest threat to 'national security' ever. ... So, they keep killing and killing and killing, this time in the name of killing ISIS, the latest new official enemy. ISIS then responds with a terrorist attack on people in France, another colonialist power who won't leave people in the Middle East alone, especially in the former French colony of Syria. Belgium arrests one of the terrorists who committed the attacks in France. ISIS bombs innocent people in Belgium. Belgian, French, and U.S. officials exclaim, 'They just hate us all for our freedom and values,' acting as though the ongoing U.S. death machine in the Middle East has nothing to do with this never-ending, perpetual cycle of death and destruction." (03/23/16)

"More explosive devices reportedly were turned up Tuesday as police raided homes throughout Belgium in a desperate manhunt for a third suspect believed to have survived the morning's coordinated bombings in Brussels, where at least 34 people were killed. Included in the haul were several unexploded devices, NBC reported. CBS reported two more devices had been found. ... The flurry of law enforcement activity came after a channel on the encrypted messaging app Telegram that is maintained by [the Islamic State] described the operation and took credit for the carnage." (03/22/16)

"Top Islamic State commander and feared Chechen jihadi fighter Omar Shishani has died of wounds suffered in a U.S. airstrike in Syria last week, a senior Iraqi intelligence official and the head of a Syrian activist group said Tuesday. Shishani died Monday outside the Islamic State group's main stronghold of Raqqa in Syria, the two told the Associated Press. The red-bearded ethnic Chechen was one of the most prominent Islamic State commanders, serving as the group's military commander for the territory it controls in Syria." (03/15/16)

"Tens of thousands of documents, containing names, addresses, telephone numbers and family contacts of Islamic State jihadis, have been obtained by Sky News. Nationals from at least 51 countries, including the UK, had to give up their most personal information as they joined the terror organisation. Only when the 23-question form was filled in were they inducted into IS. ... The files were passed to Sky News on a memory stick stolen from the head of Islamic State's internal security police, an organisation described by insiders as the group's SS. The man who stole it was a former Free Syrian Army convert to Islamic State who calls himself Abu Hamed. Disillusioned with the Islamic State leadership, he says it has now been taken over by former soldiers from the Iraqi Baath party of Saddam Hussein." (03/10/16)

"An ISIS terrorist on Sunday detonated an explosive-laden fuel truck in bumper-to-bumper traffic at a security checkpoint south of Baghdad, killing at least 47 people, officials said, in the most deadly car bomb attack in Iraq this year. More than 70 people were wounded in the blast, according to Reuters and AFP. At least 39 of the dead were civilians, and the remainder were police, BBC reported." (03/06/16)

"At least 70 people have been killed and more than 100 wounded in twin suicide bombings in Baghdad, according to morgue sources. The bombings in a Shi'ite district of the Iraqi capital -- Sadr City -- were claimed by Islamic State. ... In a statement circulated online, Islamic State said the bombers had killed and wounded 'hundreds of polytheist rejectionists,' as the ultra-hardline Sunni group refers to Shi'ite Muslims." (02/28/16)

"A teenage Swedish girl being held by Islamic State militants in Iraq was rescued in a raid by Kurdish special forces last week, the autonomous region's security council said in a statement on Tuesday. The 16-year-old traveled from Sweden to Syria last year and later crossed into Iraq, where she was rescued near the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul on Feb. 17 by forces from the Kurdish counter terrorism department, the statement said. The Kurdish security council identified the rescued teenager as coming from the Swedish town of Boras and said she had been 'misled' into making the journey to Syria by an Islamic State member in Sweden." (02/23/16)

"A double bombing killed at least 46 people in Syria's Homs on Sunday, as US Secretary of State John Kerry said a provisional deal had been reached on the terms of a ceasefire. World powers have been pushing for a break in fighting that was meant to go into effect by Friday, but have struggled to agree how to implement it. ... Homs city has regularly been targeted in bomb attacks, including last month when a double bombing claimed by the Islamic State group killed 22 people in Al-Zahraa neighbourhood. The district's residents are mostly Alawites, the minority sect of Syria's ruling clan, including President Bashar al-Assad." (02/21/16)

"A 'highly dangerous' radioactive material that went missing in Iraq has been found dumped near a petrol station in the southern town of Zubair, environment ministry spokesman Ameer Ali said on Sunday. Ali said it had not been damaged and there were no concerns about radiation from the material, the loss of which raised concerns it could be used as a weapon if acquired by ISIS militants. The material had been stolen in November from a storage facility belonging to U.S. oilfield services company Weatherford near the southern city of Basra." (02/21/16)

"Islamic State militants attacked Kurdish forces in Iraq with mustard gas last year, in the first known use of chemical weapons in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein, a diplomat said. A source for the global chemicals arms watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), confirmed that laboratory tests had come back positive for the sulphur mustard, after about 35 Kurdish troops fell ill on the battlefield in August. The OPCW will not identify who used the chemical agent. But the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity because the findings have not yet been released, said the result confirmed that chemical weapons had been used by IS fighters." (02/16/16)

"US Secretary of State John Kerry demanded Thursday that Russia stop bombing the Syrian opposition, implicitly blaming Moscow for the collapse in peace talks. ... Alongside Britain's Foreign Minister Phillip Hammond, Kerry read out sections of UN Security Council resolution 2254, passed in December, calling for an immediate ceasefire. 'Russia has a responsibility, as do all parties, to live up to it,' he said." [editor's note: Apparently "all parties" doesn't include the US and its partners, who conducted 11 airstrikes in Syria yesterday according to US Central Command - TLK] (02/04/16)

"A Russian military adviser was killed in Syria on Feb. 1 in a mortar attack, Russian news agencies cited the Defence Ministry as saying on Wednesday. 'A Russian military adviser was performing the task of assisting the Syrian army in the development of new weapons supplied under existing interstate military-technical contract,' RIA news agency cited a representative of the ministry as saying." (02/04/16)

"A bomb attack claimed by Islamic State in the Syrian government-controlled city of Homs killed at least 24 people on Tuesday, the city's governor said, as government forces took back some IS-held villages east of Aleppo. The governor of Homs said the first of two explosions was caused by a car bomb targeting a security checkpoint. A suicide bomber then set off an explosive belt, state media reported." (01/26/16)

"ISIS poses a national security threat to the United States primarily because of the resources it commands. The organization boasts an impressive network of revenue streams, ranging from oil proceeds and racketeering profits to money seized from local banks. But ISIS also profits from its lucrative trade in pilfered Roman, Greek, and other antiquities found in Syria and northern Iraq. This lucrative operation presents a national security dilemma because it helps fund ISIS's international war machine." [summary -- full paper available as PDF download] (01/20/16)

"The Islamic State group has acknowledged the death of the masked militant known as 'Jihadi John,' who appeared in several videos depicting the beheadings of Western hostages, the SITE Intelligence Group reported Tuesday. SITE, which monitors terrorist activity, reported that ISIS published a 'eulogizing profile' of Jihadi John in its English-language magazine Dabiq on Tuesday. Jihadi John had been identified by the US military as Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwaiti-born British citizen." (01/19/16)

"One person was killed and one more seriously wounded Monday when a rocket fired from a jihadist-controlled area in Syria slammed into a schoolyard in a Turkish border town, officials said. A female school cleaner was killed and a schoolgirl required an operation for her injuries in the strike on the town of Kilis just north of the border with Syria, the local governor's office said. The town was hit by a total of three rockets, two of which fell into an open area while one more hit the yard, it said." (01/18/16)

"Attackers struck in the middle of the day Thursday, in the middle of a busy central Jakarta commercial hub -- killing at least two, wounding 19 and raising alarms about terrorism once more, this time in the world's most populous Muslim country. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rattle of shots and explosions from at least five attackers. But police believe that they were linked to ISIS, and the Islamic State-affiliated Aamaq News Agency reported people from that terror group were behind the bloodshed." (01/14/16)

"The Saudi headchoppers are considered US allies and have been so for nearly all of its current existence. The fact that it is awash in petroleum explains this. Also, the Kingdom has long been allied with Great Britain. Their small armed forces and military equipment are all supplied by or trained by western governments. The headchopper Kingdom has long cooperated with western nations in important matters, though there are many (secret) exceptions. ... There are many parallels between 'our' allied headchoppers and 'theirs,' namely the Islamic State. The religo-ethnic basis of both nations is much the same: Arab nationalist with a heavy dose of Wahhabi Sunni theology and 7th century cultural affectations." (01/14/16)

"Seven members of the Afghan security forces were killed Wednesday after unidentified gunmen attacked the Pakistani consulate in a volatile eastern province, an official said on Wednesday. Attaullah Khyogani, spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province, said another seven security forces personnel were injured in during the attack, which began when a suicide bomber detonated explosives outside the consulate in the provincial capital Jalalabad. ... According to the French news agency AFP, ISIS claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attack." (01/13/16)

"A suicide bomber linked to ISIS killed 10 foreigners and wounded 15 other people in a popular tourist area in Istanbul on Tuesday morning, Turkish officials said. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the bomber was a member of ISIS and that all those killed in the attack were foreigners. The attacker was described by the deputy prime minister as a Syrian national in his late 20s. Local media reported that the majority, if not all, of those killed in the blast dead were German." (01/12/16)

"Gunmen stormed into a Baghdad mall on Monday after setting off a car bomb and launching a suicide attack at its entrance, killing at least 18 people and wounding 50 in the city's mainly Shiite east, Iraqi officials said. The officials initially described the attack as a hostage situation, estimating that 50 people were trapped inside the complex. But Iraqi forces soon surrounded the building and landed troops on the roof. They clashed with the attackers inside, killing two of them, arresting another four and declaring the standoff over." (01/11/16)

"A massive truck bomb exploded near a police base in the western Libyan town of Zliten on Thursday, killing at least 60 policemen and wounding around 200 others, officials said. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but a local Islamic State affiliate has been trying to gain a foothold in Zliten, spreading westward from its central stronghold in the city of Sirte along the North African country's coast." (01/07/16)

"Saudi Arabia has perpetrated a mass execution that puts ISIS's beach beheadings to shame. Forty-seven heads rolled on Saturday. One of them belonged to Nimr al-Nimr, a revered Shi'ite cleric who had been sentenced to death for sermons in which he criticized the government (especially for its persecution of the country's Shi'ite minority). His brother has been sentenced to be crucified. This was done as the Saudis continue to drop American bombs on Shia in Yemen (boosting Al Qaeda there) and to hire jihadis to help ISIS and Al-Qaeda kill Shia in Syria. It is no mystery why the Saudis are such brothers in arms with the Bin Ladenites, sharing both their hyper-sectarian aims and their gruesome methods." (01/05/16)

"Islamic State has killed two security guards and set an oil storage tank ablaze in a suicide car bombing at Libya's largest oil port. The battle in Al-Sidra saw two suicide bombers blow themselves up at a military checkpoint while other ISIS militants involved in the coordinated attack were pushed back by government soldiers. ISIS has been trying to push east from its stronghold of Sirte for several weeks to reach the country's 'oil crescent,' where main oil terminals such as Al-Sidra and Ras Lanouf are based." (01/04/16)